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The Dartmouth
July 2, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth
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News

Profs. investigate obesity trends

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Childhood obesity which has tripled since 1980 and now affects roughly 12.5 million children under 19 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control has captured the attention of several Dartmouth faculty members and researchers, including Geisel School of Medicine pediatrics professor Madeline Dalton and economics professor Patricia Anderson. Dalton and her research team completed a study, published Monday in Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, that showed the effectiveness of team sports in reducing adolescent obesity. Anderson is currently finalizing a paper looking at the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on children's weight, according to Anderson. Dalton's paper, titled "Influence of Sports, Physical Education and Active Commuting to School on Adolescent Weight Status," examined the relationship between participation in different types of physical activity and children's weight. The research team examined data from 1,718 high school students and concluded that adolescents participating in at least two different sports teams over the course of a year are 26 percent less likely to be obese tham their less-than-two-sport counterparts. They also found that these students were 11 percent less likely to be overweight or obese than students who were not members of at least two different teams. "In team sports, kids have regular practice and more consistent moderate physical activity, and that's why they're more protected [from obesity]," Dalton said. Children participating in only one sports team, however, did not have a significantly lower risk for being obese or overweight. Additionally, participating in casual and less rigorous physical activity was not associated with a lower rate of obesity, Dalton said. The results of the study also indicate that the prevalence of obesity is approximately 22 percent lower for students who walk or bike to school four to five times per week, which is a trend unseen in previous studies, according to Dalton. Approximately 29 percent of all survey participants were overweight or obese, and roughly 75 percent participated in at least one team sport, according to the article. Dalton said that the biggest limitation of the study was its design as an observational research project and not an experimental study. "We performed the study by looking at associations that exist, not by randomizing kids with different levels of physical activity," she said. Dalton said that the girls surveyed tended to underestimate their weight while boys tended to overestimate their height. This trend, however, did not affect the results, as the research team validated much of the self-reported data and after analysis did not find any significant deviations. Anderson, who performed her research with Wellesley College professor Kristin Butcher and Northwestern University professor Diane Schanzenbach, researched how "accountability pressures" from the No Child Left Behind Act affect childhood obesity rates. The research team is currently revising their paper before they submit it to a journal for publication, Anderson said. Due to pressure to increase standardized test scores, schools have reduced recess time and physical education courses. Schools have also increased the number of food-based incentives and rewards such as bake sales and parties, Anderson said. Schools have also increased the amount of junk food served in cafeterias in response to the budgetary pressures of the No Child Left Behind, according to Anderson. "Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children's health," the researchers wrote in the paper. Anderson examined the "most pressured" K-12 institutions in Arkansas, which has a large amount of data available for the obesity and test proficiency rates of each school, according to Anderson.


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News

College plans to limit funds for Green Team

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Leslie Ye / The Dartmouth Staff Starting Tuesday, the College will no longer provide funding for Green Team sober monitors or "party packs" consisting of water and bread sticks at events that are not registered with the College, according Justin Anderson, Director of Media Relations for the College. Anderson said the new policy was enacted in order to reduce "confusion among students" about the College's policy on Green Team and unregistered events. The new policy is an "unfortunate" departure from previous College policy, under which the College provided funding in a lump sum based on Green Team's cost estimates, regardless of whether events monitored by Green Team were registered, former Green Team co-chair Charlotte Cipparone '12 said. Green Team, a student-run organization founded in February 2011, provides sober monitors at campus parties to combat high-risk drinking, as well as food and water to help mitigate the effects of heavy drinking. The College cannot adequately reduce harm at events that are not registered, Anderson said. "We can only put forth our best effort in harm reduction for drinking and sexual assault when we know that there is an event," he said.



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News

Prouty raises $2.4 million for cancer

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Courtesy of Philippa Martinez-Berrier Over 5,000 participants and 1,100 volunteers came out in full force on Saturday to walk, bike, row and volunteer at the 31st annual Prouty fundraiser, raising approximately $2.4 million for patient services and cancer research at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, according to Prouty Executive Director Jean Brown.


News

Daily Debriefing

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Many colleges release post-graduation job placement rates based on surveys with insufficient sample sizes, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported.


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Writer Gourevitch arrives at College as Montgomery Fellow

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Courtesy of Books Live Philip Gourevitch, a writer for the New Yorker and the author of three books, will remain in residence at Dartmouth as a Montgomery Fellow until July 19 to interact with the community through a series of events, according to Richard Stamelman, Executive Director of the Montgomery Endowment.




News

Women's Forum hosts first panel

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Correction appended Sharing the common bond of graduating as some of the first women to attend Dartmouth, psychotherapist Martha Hennessey '76, author Nessa Flax '76 and minister Ann Beams '77 discussed qualities of leadership in front of approximately 80 women in Collis Common Ground on Tuesday night. The event, the first of the four-part "Women's Leadership Series," was organized by Women's Forum, an organization founded during Spring term that aims to initiate dialogue and promote community among female students at the College, according to the organization's summer co-directors Zheng-Yi Yang '14 and Anoush Arakelian '14. Hennessey, who was raised in Hanover, said that she wanted to go to Dartmouth when she was younger despite constant reminders that the College only accepted male students. After Dartmouth became coeducational in 1972, Hennessey said she approached admissions officers and told them she wanted to be the first woman to apply to the College. Hennessey initially enrolled at Vassar College to study psychology but transferred to Dartmouth for her sophomore year. Hennessey commended former College President John Kemeny for his efforts to integrate women into the Dartmouth community, despite a College culture that was generally unwelcoming to females at the time. "[Kemeny] truly believed in coeducation, and he was going to make it happen come hell or high water," she said. The prevailing opinion during that time was that women needed to "look, act and behave as much as possible like Dartmouth men," she said. "I had professors who were not supportive but degrading," she said, citing an occasion when one professor refused to acknowledge women as anything but "Smith dates," referring to the all-female Smith College in Massachusetts. Despite these challenges, Hennessey said her Dartmouth experience helped her develop leadership abilities. "I learned at Dartmouth that standing up for myself was an important thing, that in the end people would respect me," she said. Hennessey also advised the audience to support and celebrate each other as women of Dartmouth. "If you try to be like men, all you're doing is being as dumb as they are," she said, criticizing instances of hazing and binge drinking at the College. Flax, author of the book "Voices in the Hills: Collected Ramblings from a Rural Life," encouraged attendees to develop their own definitions of leadership and said that good leadership is extremely rare because leaders often try to protect the status quo and feel threatened by change. "If you are driven by ego rather than passion, your leadership will fail," she said. Flax, who also transferred to Dartmouth during the middle of her college career, said that she did not receive any encouragement from her deans to extend herself academically. Her book was published in 2012 with encouragement from members of the Dartmouth faculty, she said. "Don't let anyone talk you into doing anything you are not passionate about," she said. Beams, a minister at the Valley Presbyterian Church in Brookfield, Conn., said that the College was a very "traditional" place when she was a student. Few women attended the school, and many wondered how they would adapt to the already established culture, she said. Beam said that it was relatively easy to join student groups and most people were "personally welcoming." Beam also said that most professors at the College during that time were supportive. "The professors treated me like a student and expected me to prove myself on my own," she said. Students who attended the event said they enjoyed hearing about the experience of women who attended the College when it first become coeducational. "They were very straightforward about their opinion and their experience at the school," Winnie Yoe '14 said.


News

Professor shares Native American experiences

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Educators from around the country came to Dartmouth this week to participate in a week-long seminar, sponsored by the New York-based Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, aimed at improving the pedagogy of the discipline of Native American history and exploring Native American encounters with the Lewis and Clark expedition. Participants in the seminar, including teachers, library workers and National Park Service interpreters, were selected to attend through a competitive process and discussed broader facets of American Indian history, including government policies concerning native people and the importance of Native American history to understanding history. History and Native American studies professor Colin Calloway, the director of the seminar, said that the main focus was on the expedition as both a pivotal event in American history and a case study in cultural contact. "This is the second time I've done the seminar on Native American history at Dartmouth," Calloway said.


News

Daily Debriefing

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In an effort to combat high-risk drinking, sexual assault and hazing, Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson proposed new alcohol policy reforms after discussions with Greek leaders, Johnson wrote in a campus-wide email sent Thursday afternoon.


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News

Geisel announces early assurance

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Amelia Acosta / The Dartmouth Staff Under the bright lights of a classroom in the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, Geisel School of Medicine administrators and current students spoke to approximately 30 undergraduates on Monday about Geisel's new Early Assurance Program, designed to provide binding admittance to the medical school for up to five current Dartmouth students in their junior year. The program, which will be implemented for the first time in the 2012-2013 academic year for the Class of 2014, requires undergraduate students to submit their applications by October, with interviews and application review occurring throughout November and December, according to Geisel Director of Admissions Andy Welch.


News

Kadish, Snyder to depart in fall

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Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Steven Kadish will leave the College in September to become the senior vice president and chief operating officer at Northeastern University, according to an announcement by Interim President Carol Folt on Monday.


News

Daily Debriefing

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In a study published last month by the American Council on Education, American colleges and universities reported an increase in internationalization over the last three years, according to The New York Times.



News

Lync provides new chat options

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As part of the College's email migration to Microsoft Outlook, Computing Services has introduced a new application called Lync, which allows Dartmouth students and faculty to instant message, voice chat and video conference, according to Director of Academic and Campus Technology Services William Garrity. Lync, which came with the new email client package, integrates the Dartmouth Name Directory into an application that functions like Skype, Garrity said. "It looks a lot like the video desktop chat applications that you're used to," he said.


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